(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information communication terminal, in particular to a process of displaying received mail.
(2) Description of the Related Art
To check a received mail item on a mobile telephone, the user opens the received mail folder, which causes a list of senders of the received mail to be displayed. Then, the user operates the cursor using direction keys to select one of the received mail items and pushes down a confirm button for mail display, and whereby the message of the mail is displayed. From this point onward, the mail item is treated as read mail, assumed that its message has been read by the user. When there is an unread mail item, being not treated as read mail, an icon indicating that there is an unread mail item is displayed on the mobile telephone.
Some recent mobile phones have a function to display, when the user is operating the cursor on the display of the received mail list using the direction keys, a preview of the message of a mail item selected by the cursor. When a mail item in the list is selected by the cursor, the characters of the selected mail item may be highlighted in reverse video of the black and white, or the cursor may simply be changed to an arrow pointing to the selected mail item. In a preview display, the beginning portion, e.g. only the first two lines, of the message of the mail item selected by the cursor is displayed together with the received mail list in order to call the user's attention to the content of the selected mail item. Thus, with the preview display, the user is able to readily check or understand the content of the mail item. Since the preview of the selected mail item is displayed with the received mail list, the preview display area is fairly limited, and it is accordingly sometimes the case that the user cannot check the entire message of the mail item in the preview. In this case, therefore, it is desirable that the mail item be treated as unread.
On the other hand, because it is hard to write, and also read, a long mail message on a mobile device like a mobile telephone, short messages are often exchanged, and therefore the limited display area may be sufficient for displaying such a short message. In this case, it is cumbersome for the user to perform an operation to make the short-message mail item as read. For example, assume the case in which the user, who had checked the message of a mail item in the preview, changed the display straight back to a standby screen without actually performing an operation to display the message. Here, although the user has checked the mail message in the preview, the mail item is not treated as read mail, and an icon appears indicating that the mail item has not been read. Because of the icon, the user may misunderstand that another mail item has been received, and accordingly check again the same, already checked mail item. In order to prevent such occurrence, the user has to perform an operation of displaying the mail message; however, the operation is cumbersome for the user since he/she has already checked the mail message in the preview.